And The Waters Turned To Blood
By: Bay, 6th Grade
The wind blew harshly over the cold Arctic Ocean. An arctic tern flapped its wings gently, the storm filtering through its silky brown feathers and lifting it to a slightly higher altitude. It hovered like that for a few moments before returning to its former level. The waves crashed below it, the sea turning to a foamy white as it seemed to reach up into the air, trying to grab the grey clouds levitated thousands of feet above it.
Beneath the dreadful waves, a lone male narwhal swam slowly through the churning water. Surrounding him, broken off chunks of ice floated in the deep, some, apparently too lazy to move with the current, latched to his soft grey skin. On his forehead was a long, twisted horn, ending in a sharp point. It was about 10 feet long, and had many scratches due to the tusking fights he had had with other males for mates. He had won no fights yet, and had the scars to prove it. There was one that stretched from the tip of his tail up to his left fin. His body was dappled with blue-grey spots.
The icy water sent a chill up his spine, and he waved his tail back and forth once, sending a mild shockwave through the water. He swam upwards several feet, hoping to get to slightly warmer water. His eyes stared into the blue distance, looking bored. Then, he was at attention. The figures of two fellow narwhals appeared in the distance. Maybe they were females?
He swam forward, gaining speed. His spirits dampened as he noticed one of the whales had no tusk, and the other had two. This was a rare sight. He had never seen a male with two tusks. The female was apparently not his mate, she was detached from him and swimming on her own.
The two-tusker gave the other a menacing glare, the glint in his eyes unmistakable. He wanted to fight. The lone male returned the gaze, turning his body vertically and pointing his tusk forward, in position to battle. The two-tusker mimicked this position, and at the same instant, they swam towards the surface.
As their tusks protruded through the water in a sudden spray of water and foam, the arctic tern flying above startled, and gave a strangled cry as it narrowly avoided the clashing tusks of the narwhals below it. It flew off in a flurry of feathers, heading south towards Greenland, where it would be safer.
The two males dove beneath the water once more, and resurfaced to resume their tusking battle. This repeated itself several times before the two-tusker managed to gore the other in the eye. It gave a wail of anguish, a mist of red clouding the water. The two-tusker jabbed randomly, hoping to hit the vital spots on the neck. The lone male dove deep, hoping to cleanse the dire wound. After a short recovery, he swam back up again, aiming, half-blind, for the soft underbelly of his opponent.
The two-tusker jerked downwards as he was stabbed by his left fin. He waved his head back in forth, scratching the other in the chest. The lone male gave a shudder before swimming aside, eager to escape the attacking tusks. The scratch on his chest pained him greatly, and restricted his swimming ability. Misty blood filled the salty ocean, and the trashing narwhals made a cloud of it around them, making it impossible to see the battle.
The nearby female watched in earnest, eager to see the results of the battle. She cringed as she heard the loudest, most anguished cry of pain coming from the cloud of blood. She saw two forms begin to sink through the water, blood leaking from fatal wounds on their bellies. It made a stream through the water, making a visible wall of blood, representing the injury and pain of the fighting males. She swam off in fear, relieved that she was not born a male, and that she did not have to go through such gruesome and horrible battles.
The currents carried the red mist throughout the surrounding ocean, turning the normally misty blue waters to bloody red. The battles endured by the male narwhals were shown by these underwater lakes of pain and death. Sadly, this brutal fighting continues today, turning the normally placid, icy waters of the Arctic Ocean to blood.